I agree with Van on the seeing improvement throughout. It's part of what I'm looking forward to. I have to say that better than .500 is not really my expectation. 7-8 wins in non-conf, and 10-8 during MAC play is what I'd consider reasonable expectations.

I would add that it's not out of the realm of possibilities that this team could end up being better than we expect. There are some parallels to the 2005 team where we were relying on freshmen (Leon William, Jeremy Fears) as well as some transfers or JCers (Mychal Green, Terren Harbut). The 2004 Bobcats even finished with an identical 10-20 record. I don't expect that kind of magic but I'm not ready to write off the year either. Looking forward to a fun ride.

I like the parallel Van. I guess we'll see in 12 days when the games start counting.

It has nothing to do with marginal success of Ohio's basketball program. It's about recruiting and in football its locally based. The program can only go as far as the meat and potato Ohio kids can take it. Its a good foundation of talent but it has its limits. In basketball recruiting is national. Ohio was on its way with Groce before JC nuked the program. A 7-9 conference record is taking it extreme but a school can be worthy of a deep run with a 12-6 or 13-5 record. You can play a poor month of basketball and recover in the NCAAs. Go 5-3 in MAC football and you're automatically down a peg, outside of any serious bowl consideration. The margin of error is so much greater in basketball. It takes a threshold of brand and facility to take it to the next level in basketball and Ohio has it.